CFP – Special Issue of Dzieciństwo: Literatura i Kultura: Film and TV Series Adaptations of Children’s and Youth Literature in the 21st Century

Film and TV Series Adaptations of Children’s and Youth Literature in the 21st Century

Since the beginning of the twenty-first century, we have been observing the increase in the popularity of film and TV series adaptations of children’s and youth literature. It was in 2001 that such productions were made as Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone by Chris Columbus – screen adaptation of the first part of the famous J. K. Rowling’s heptalogy, The Princess Diaries by Gary Marshall based on the Meg Cabot book, or Shrek by Andrew Adamson and Vicky Jenson inspired by a book by William Steig under the same title.

We would also like to devote the first issue of the journal Dzieciństwo: Literatura i Kultura to consideration on the 21st century trend of adaptation of children’s literature – both film and TV series, presented on cinema and television screens and on streaming platforms (such as Netflix). What are the transformations of childhood constructs relative to literary prototypes? What tendencies are visible in film and TV series adaptations understood as reinterpretations of pre-text books? What literary works are the modern adapters most willing to use and what could be the reasons for their choices? Who is the hypothetical recipient of contemporary film and TV series adaptations?

We invite you to look at contemporary adaptations of both the classics of literature for young audiences and newer works; Polish and foreign texts. When presenting the analyzes of films and TV series, we would like to remind of their often forgotten – for example under the influence of adaptation – literary prototypes. We are interested in case studies as well as cross-sectional studies.

The problem areas we propose are:

  • Adaptations of multi-volume novels – both complete (e.g. Harry Potter, Hunger Games), and incomplete (e.g. His Dark Materials, Eragon, The Chronicles of Narnia, Percy Jackson); here especially the hypothetical reasons for the lack of continuation
  • New adaptations of the classics against previous adaptations (e.g. The Jungle Book from 2016 versus The Jungle Book from 1967)
  • Adaptations of contemporary fantasy literature (e.g. A Monster Calls, Coraline) and literary realism (e.g. Wonder, The Fault in Our Stars)
  • TV series adaptations of the era of streaming platforms (e.g. Anne, Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events)
  • Adaptations of the latest Polish children’s and youth literature – film (e.g. Za niebieskimi drzwiami, Felix, Net i Nika oraz teoretycznie możliwa katastrofa) and TV series (e.g. Kacperiada, Pamiętnik Florki)
  • Adaptations more popular than their book source material (e.g. Shrek, How to Train Your Dragon)
  • Expansion of the source material (e.g. Where the Wild Things Are, Le Petit Prince – are those still adaptations?)
  • Biographical films about the creators of children’s and youth literature (e.g. Finding Neverland, Saving Mr. Banks, Goodbye Christopher Robin) and their relationship with the phenomenon of adaptation

We also invite you to send texts that are not related to the theme of the issue to the Varia and Reviews sections.

The deadline for submitting articles: November 30, 2018

Website: http://www.journals.polon.uw.edu.pl/index.php/dlk
Email: redakcja.dlk@uw.edu.pl

CFP – Postmodern Writing, Artistic Orientation and Literary Tradition: Studies on Tonke Dragt’s Children’s Books and Their Media Adaptations

Call for Papers

From 30 September to 2 October 2019, The University of Siegen organizes in cooperation with Tilburg University a conference on “Postmodern Writing, Artistic Orientation and Literary Tradition. Studies on Tonke Dragt’s Children’s Books and Their Media Adaptations.”

For more than 50 years Tonke Dragt has been one of the most popular children’s authors in the Netherlands. In Germany, her two best-known books Der Brief für den König (A Letter to the King) and Das Geheimnis des siebten Weges (The Song of Seven) have become bestsellers. Time and time again, these two together with some of her further children’s books have been adapted to other media, such as films, audiobooks, and games. At the moment, Netflix is planning to adapt A Letter to the King into a TV series. Dragt’s novels have also been adapted for educational purposes.

While Dragt’s novels enjoy a tremendous popularity, her work has been widely neglected in academia. Both intermedial and interdisciplinary approaches to her work as well as specific literary-theoretical and historical perspectives on Dragt’s oeuvre are still a rare occurrence in the academic landscape. This conference aims at changing this situation and wants to provide a good foundation for future research.

Together with authors such as Paul Biegel, Otfried Preuβler, Michael Ende, and James Krüss, Tonke Dragt belongs to a generation of children’s book authors who did not follow the 1970s trend of realistic, problem-oriented children’s literature. Instead, they created adventurous and fantastic worlds in their literary texts, which addressed fundamental existentialist questions. In the same vein as the above mentioned authors, Dragt gains her inspiration from folk- and fairy tales, as well as from classic world literatures. Riddled with well-known quotations and references from these literatures, Dragt’s stories invite young readers to go on a literary treasure hunt. This postmodern aspect of her work, reminiscent of Michael Ende’s books, also offers new perspectives on German literatures of this time period. Particularly interesting for children’s literature research are also both her illustrations and the collages she orchestrates of her own work as well as those of other authors.

Contributions in German, English or Dutch could address, but are not restricted to the following topics:

  • Biographical aspects
  • Tonke Dragt’s position in Dutch children’s literature
  • Genres in Dragt’s oeuvre
  • Analysis of Dragt’s books from critical perspectives such as ecocriticism, postcolonialism, comparative literature, narratology and translation studies
  • Interdisciplinary studies of Dragt’s illustrations of her own work and that of others
  • Media adaptations of Dragt’s work (film, television, audiobooks, games)
  • Adaptations of Dragt’s books for educational purposes
  • Dragt’s books in the discussion about the difference between popularity and canonicity

Abstracts (ca. 300 words) and a short academic biography should be sent before 30 November 2018 to the organizing committee: Dr. Jana Mikota, Siegen University, email: Mikota@germanistik.uni-siegen.de; Erik Dietrich, Siegen University, email: erik-dietrich@gmx.de; Prof.dr. Helma van Lierop-Debrauwer, Tilburg University, email: h.vanlierop@tilburguniversity.edu.

Travel expenses will be reimbursed provided that we get third-party funding for the conference. On the occasion of the author’s ninetieth birthday, we expect to publish a book with conference papers in the series Kinder- und Jugendliteratur intermedial (scheduled for 2020).